The Onion Project: Week 10 ~ Identity as Liberation

Week 10  The Core: Identity as Liberation

At last, we reach the center. We have peeled away the thin skin of visibility, the fragile bridges of access, the layered misunderstandings of communication and education, the ache of isolation, the rebuilding of community, and the discovery of culture. And what remains here is not emptiness. What remains is the core.

The core is identity, the unshakable truth of being Deaf, of being autistic, of being ADHD, of being fully and unapologetically yourself. It is not something to fix, correct, or escape. It is not something to apologize for. The core is the fire that fuels survival, the anchor that holds steady in every storm, the root that allows thriving to grow and take shape. It is what remains when every external label has been peeled away, the truth that has always been there.

For Deaf people, the core means far more than simply “not hearing.” It means a language of hands, eyes, and faces that carries the poetry of generations. It means connection through movement, through shared rhythm, through stories told in light and motion. It means Deafhood,  not as a label, but as a living process of becoming, a journey of naming oneself proudly in a world that once tried to name you as broken. It is the realization that Deafness is not a lack but a culture, a way of knowing and creating that enriches everyone it touches.

For neurodivergent people, the core means seeing difference as design, not defect. It means a mind that processes uniquely, often creatively, sometimes chaotically, but always with its own rhythm. It means honoring that rhythm rather than hiding it to please others. It means understanding that focus, energy, or pattern-seeking are not flaws to suppress but tools to build with. The core is the moment you stop asking how to be “normal” and start asking how to live fully.

At the center of this onion, something powerful becomes clear: identity is liberation.

When you stand in the core, you no longer define yourself by what the world thinks is missing. You define yourself by what you carry, what you create, what you are. You are not the sum of what others failed to see in you; you are the sum of what you have discovered within yourself.

The tears from the outer layers, the pain of exclusion, the strain of access, the loneliness of being misunderstood, they still matter. They are real, and they remain part of you. But they no longer weaken the core. They season it. They give it depth. Every hardship becomes a ring of growth, a layer of wisdom protecting what lives within.

This is the soul of the onion.This is where survival turns into pride, where belonging transforms into freedom, where thriving becomes not the exception but the natural state of being.

At the core, Deafhood and neurodivergent identity converge, both grounded in community, both sustained by difference, both carrying the same truth: that wholeness is not about perfection. It is about integrity, about being entirely, beautifully, authentically oneself.

The core teaches that the goal was never to become someone else’s idea of “whole.” The goal was to come home to yourself, to the language that holds you, the community that sees you, the rhythm that fits you. This is not a simple arrival. It’s a lifelong practice. Sometimes we circle back, peeling familiar layers again, confronting old wounds of access, belonging, or self-worth. But each time we return to the center, we find it steadier, stronger, more defined by love than by struggle.

The core does not ask you to forget the layers that came before. It asks you to honor them. To understand that they built the strength that now allows you to stand in your own identity. The tears shed in early layers, the frustration of being misunderstood, the grief of isolation, the yearning for language, all of them become part of your foundation.

In the core, you no longer measure your worth by how well you adapt to others. You live by how fully you embody yourself. You speak in your own language, move in your own rhythm, and trust that your difference is your design.

This is the heart of the onion. The place where we stop peeling and start being.

The journey through these layers is not easy. Some layers cut deep; others make us weep. Sometimes we must revisit the same ones again and again before we can rest at the center. But the core remains: patient, waiting, unwavering.

It whispers a truth as old as humanity and as new as every act of self-acceptance:

You are whole.

You are rooted.

You are free.

~ A. Bret Cummens, M.Ed.